{"id":893,"date":"2010-01-24T14:13:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T22:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peakepro.com\/?p=893"},"modified":"2010-01-24T14:13:30","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T22:13:30","slug":"the-fourth-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/archives\/893-the-fourth-year.html","title":{"rendered":"The Fourth Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our son, <a href=\"\/archives\/138-James-Valentine-Peake.html\">James<\/a>, was born four years ago today. His brief life changed mine inexplicably. Since that time, I completed a <a href=\"\/archives\/328-Doctor-Peake.html\">Doctorate in Spiritual Science<\/a>, and an <a href=\"\/categories\/poetry\/mfa\">MFA<\/a> in writing poetry, since spiritual practice and poetic expression are two oars by which I navigate the underground waters of grief. <\/p>\n<p>And looking back on the <a href=\"\/archives\/272-Thank-You-James.html\">first<\/a>, <a href=\"\/archives\/386-The-Second-Year.html\">second<\/a>, and <a href=\"\/archives\/440-The-Third-Year.html\">third<\/a> anniversary, I see a clear trajectory toward healing, and toward integrating this profound experience into my life&#8211;not as a tragedy&#8211;but as a source of strength. I recently found the courage to hold a baby in my arms again, and felt, in that moment, <a href=\"\/archives\/848-enlightened-america.html\">only joy<\/a>. I have also discovered more of the blessings, strange as it sounds, of <a href=\"\/archives\/482-The-Blessings-of-Complicated-Grief.html\">the complicated nature of grief<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This experience reaffirmed a few things for me: that art can make life meaningful, that compassion is always the most appropriate response, and that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.valeriekampmeier.com\/\">my wife<\/a> is still the bravest woman I have ever met. Today, I say, once again: godspeed, my son. And thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our son, James, was born four years ago today. His brief life changed mine inexplicably. Since that time, I completed a Doctorate in Spiritual Science, and an MFA in writing poetry, since spiritual practice and poetic expression are two oars by which I navigate the underground waters of grief. And looking back on the first, &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/archives\/893-the-fourth-year.html\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Fourth Year<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,23,3,1268],"tags":[337],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}